Make an Impressive Product Catalog [spreadsheets for small business]

It is the customer on the phone again, she wants to know what products we have.How cool would it be if we can send her a spreadsheet with all the products neatly listed in a table and she can use filters to find what she likes. Alas, we end up sending a biggish PDF brochure that is both difficult to make and maintain.

Well, not any more.

Today we will learn a very useful and fun trick in Excel. We will create a product catalog using Excel that you can send to your clients or boss (and impress them).

We will create something like this:

Step one: Set up the product catalog in Excel Spreadsheet

This is a simple step. Define a table structure for your product catalog. For our example – Supurr Market, I have chosen only one column, with the images of various Cats the shop sells. But you can add more columns like size, age, price, features etc.

Also, just type the product name in the cells where you have kept the images.

Step two: Adjust image properties so that they can be filtered

We will finish this step before you can snap your fingers. Just select all the images, right click and select Format picture (in Excel 2007, you need to select ‘size & properties’) and go to “properties” tab. Here change the option to “Move and size with cells” from whatever it is earlier.

Step three: Apply data filters so that your product catalog can be filtered

Do that.

Step four: Time to impress your clients

Send the lean and sleek product catalog to your clients. Tell your story elegantly and get some orders.

Download the product catalog template workbook

Click here [.zip version here] to download the excel product catalogue workbook. Use it to learn and make your own product catalogs using MS excel.

Do you run a small business? Tell me how you use excel.

I think Excel has great potential to manage 90% of small business IT operations. It is simple to learn and easy to maintain. I want to know how you use excel to manage your small business. Share your experiences and ideas using comments.

PS: Special thanks to Gerald Higgins for telling me about the image properties tip.

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Hi, I have 400 images. I normally use excel- but this time 400 images is jst a bit too much for doing it with excel. Is there a way excel can add the file name automatically next to the images? It can save me a lot of time- really a lot of ime!!
Please help…

Thank you for the catalog filter. However, I am having a problem. I am trying to mail merge only the filtered (i.e. visible) catalog item records into Word 2011 but it merges all the items, including the hidden records. Is there a way to automatically copy the filtered records to a designated worksheet (that always gets erased prior to the new data being pasted) within the same Excel workbook each time the filter is applied? I would like this to happen in the background so that I can remain in the Excel Product Catalog worksheet once the macro is completed.